When breeding marine animals in tanks or ponds it is necessary to ensure good water quality to promote growth and good health of the marine animals. To this end, the water within an aquaculture tank or pond is typically circulated through a filter to extract solid particles and other waste material. In its simplest form, this is achieved by plumbing an outlet pipe to the tank or pond which is coupled to a pump and filter so that water from the tank or pond can be drawn through the outlet pipe and through the filter, with the filtered water returned to that particular tank or pond or to another tank or pond.
Lunde et al in U.S. Pat. No. 5,636,595 teaches a device for removing sediment particles from water in aquaculture tanks which includes a chamber within a tank that acts as a particle trap and having one conduit for drawing off water and another for drawing off the particles, both conduits feeding from the chamber.
While the Lunde system can be retrofitted to existing tanks, it appears that the preferred option is to form the chambers of the device integrally with the tank. This requires plumbing to the undersurface of a bottom wall of the tank. A further potential downside is that the chamber may eventually fill with particles and require separate cleaning.